E 341 Lecture Notes - The Symbolic, Introjection
Document Summary
One of the fundamentals of psychoanalysis is that individual behavior is deeply marked by ancient psychical processes. Conscious, sane , behavior as well as irrational or abnormal behavior both show traces of our unconscious. Psychoanalytic criticism looks at the content and creation of literary works from this basic premise. Literary works can be seen as dream work" produced by the artist"s imagination that is fueled by the unconscious. But even in individual works you can analyze characters or plot patterns and trace the presence of psychological processes or symptoms. Freud"s tripartite model of the mind: the ego, or conscious i" is constantly negotiating between the instinctive drives and irrational desires of the id and the socio-moral injunctions (matters of morality, law, conscience) enforced by the superego. The ego tries to find ways to satisfy the unacknowledged but very real desires of the id while not completely flouting the behavioral laws put forth by the superego.
